Time For A Change

[Epponnee Rae]

Congratulations, Wiggle! What brilliant news, well done!

[Hazey_Jane]

Good for you Wiggke!

[Rosa]

Well done, Wiggle!

[Pippedydeadeye]

Congrats, Wiggle. You deserve it.

[baargain]

Oh god, after nearly 20 years in the NHS, I am finally, potentially, seriously considering setting up to work privately the upper management of my service are... interesting... And it sounds like the new tender/bid is not a change that is going to be good for staff wellbeing. I can feel micromanaging and passive aggressiveness looming on the horizon. Plus, the person who was an amazing buffer between me/my colleagues, and the upper management has quit and no one wants to fill the gap. Plus, a bunch of my best friend colleague are starting to leave. Plus, I live in a bit of the country where I can't easily escape to other services. Remote work would be for services that are run in the way that mine is now moving towards.

I am going to start investigating and looking into all of this. I have a couple of friends/ex-colleagues who have done this, so I can grill them.

Gahhhhh I might chicken out yet, but I can just feel misery looming, and life is too short for that.

[Wiggle]

Baa, given what you are saying then I think exploring going private sounds like a good option.

[Pippedydeadeye]

I would totally go freelance/independent if I had the sort of skill people would pay me directly for. It’s worth exploring.

[Dutchie]

Sounds like an excellent move to me Baa, albeit a terrifying one! Especially if you know some people who have already done it - perhaps you could even collaborate with them. You're definitely right about one thing - life is far too short to waste it being miserable at work.

[baargain]

It's definitely doable. Especially now people are used to online therapy. Everyone I know in private life all seem to be doing fine, which is promising! I have some savings and after a ski holiday in Feb, not much by way of outgoings. The Bf is chill with it, and happy for me to give it a bash and potentially have a gap in earnings going into the joint account.

I just think the next year or two at work are going to be stressful hard work, so I may as well do stressful hard work and build a business out of myself.

[sally maclennane]

I would totally go freelance/independent if I had the sort of skill people would pay me directly for. It’s worth exploring.

Me too!

I think you'll be ace at it, Baaa! Go for it.

[baargain]

I am excited! But I also want to vomit! I am hilariously institutionalised. But I think I am going to do my usual thing of come up with a giant life change and then just do it rather than think too hard.

My work bestie is all for it, she will be my emotional support (she abandoning me to work in a trauma service - one that's too far for me to commute to or I would have followed her somehow). My other work bestie is likely to follow me in a few months time, we've been having parallel lines of thought it seems.

[Pippedydeadeye]

Can you & other work bestie team up & split the risk?

[baargain]

Dunno, possibly. It depends when she'd be ready to bin off the NHS.

[baargain]

Ohh my mate who did this says there are loads of clients, and also loads of people wanting private supervision (NHS supervision is most of my current job).

[baargain]

Well! I told my line manager, and my supervisor. So although I have not officially handed in my notice yet, I basically have. I will finish in the NHS on 31st March! Easter feels like a near and tidy time to go, and it's handy for the tax year I have bought a laptop, and will start making lists of stuff to do!

As I said in a daily thread, the upper management declared an increase in clinical hours for our already stressed therapists, and morale promptly fell through the floor. People are going to be working out whether to stay, work in a different service, or set up privately. I already have a good rep as a supervisor in the service, so I might be able to hoover up some private supervisees/refugees on my way out the door

[Margo]

Well done Baa, that’s a big brave step.

Such a shame that your colleagues are being treated poorly, when your service should probably be doing all they can to keep their staff happy and, well, keep them.

[baargain]

I know, that's the sad bit about quitting. The therapists and colleagues are so lovely. The upper management were like "other services do this!!" and then we were all like "yeah, and they have burnt out staff and massive staff retention problems, so well done you, if your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you?".

[sally maclennane]

It's such a shame but public services are just being slashed to the bone, with people's workloads being upped all the time.

[Hazey_Jane]

Good for you Baa.

[nineseven]

This is a brilliant move for you, Baa.